Affirm CEO Says Retailers Aim to Attract Holiday Shoppers With BNPL

Retailers are increasingly interested in offering buy now, pay later (BNPL) options to consumers, Affirm CEO Max Levchin said Thursday (Sept. 19).

More shoppers are using BNPL to finance their spending, so retailers are willing to absorb the costs of BNPL as a way to offer zero-interest loans and attract consumers ahead of the holiday shopping season, Levchin told Bloomberg Television.

“They’re buying, and they’re paying their bills with Affirm — that seems to be going well,” Levchin said, per a Bloomberg report.

This report comes three days after Affirm announced that its BNPL offering is now available for Apple Pay users in the United States, enabling them to pay for purchases via iPhone and iPad over time using Affirm and break down their payments into biweekly or monthly installments.

“We are thrilled to bring the power of Affirm to Apple Pay users in the U.S. and the retailers where they shop,” Vishal Kapoor, senior vice president of product at Affirm, said in a Monday (Sept. 16) press release announcing the integration. “This integration combines the ease, convenience and security of Apple Pay alongside the features users love in Affirm — flexibility, transparency and no late or hidden fees.”

In some other recently announced partnerships, Affirm teamed up with Hotels.com to offer a BNPL option to approved guests who are booking accommodations; with Tekmetric to enable auto repair shops to offer their customers the ability to pay over time; and with SensePass to add its service to that company’s retail payment orchestration platform and enable SensePass merchants to offer their customers the option to pay over time.

One in three consumers have used BNPL within the last year, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence and Splitit collaboration, “Redefining Retail: Consumer Finance Trends Driving the Evolution of Pay Later Plans.”

Levchin said in August that interest rate declines could drive up the usage of BNPL options.

“The most exciting thing about reductions at that fund rate is we’ll just have more active users, … we’ll have more repeat users, because we’ll be able to approve more people, Levchin said Aug. 28 during Affirm’s quarterly earnings call.